


Strong

by snatent



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Swearing, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 15:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8672062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snatent/pseuds/snatent
Summary: A young Guzma returns from his island challenge and tries to readjust to living in his parents' house. Strongly recommended you finish Sun & Moon before reading, just in case.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to crashingthatmode on Tumblr for taking a look before I posted. And for Belle, who always makes me feel like I should keep going.

We all finish our trials around the same time, Kukui, Molayne, and me. Molayne has to get home to set up his new Dungeons and Dragonite campaign. He says we should give him a call if we ever want to play, so naturally Kukui and I get on the first ferry back to Melemele and hope we never have to talk to that loser again.

Both our families are waiting on the pier when we reach our island. Kukui shouts "land ho!" like a total idiot. We get off and hug our moms. Kukui hugs his dad too. That's when the old man shows up.

Don't ever tell him I said this, but Hala's the nicest guy on the whole island, probably all of Alola. I can say that now 'cause I've seen all of it. You know when people say that someone's stopped growing up and started growing another way? That's Hala. I mean he's large. Like, real fat. But he's good. 

So Hala walks onto the pier, and he congratulates the both of us. Says he's proud two kids from our island finished the trials so close together, whatever. Asks us what we're going to do now. Kukui pipes up, says he wants to head to Kanto and see what battling is like over there. I tell him "same as it is here- you beat down the other guy's pokemon 'till there's none left."

Hala tells Kukui he thinks it's great he has a goal in mind. Then he turns to me and asks me what I want to do. 

I don't know what I want to do. I haven't gotten that far. I look at Mom and Pops. I know what they want to say. Don't go to Kanto. Don't go anywhere. We miss our boy. 

Before my mouth is open my dad says, "Well I assume the next step is for our boy to try and become Captain, eh?"

Hala sniffs at this and looks me up and down. "Yes, I suppose that's not a bad idea," he says. "Guzma, you've worked real hard these last few months, haven't you?"

Hell yeah I did. You ever see anybody take on the volcano trial armed with only bugs and burn heals? That's because it's fucking hard. I don't say that, though. I nod. 

"Well it's settled, then," he says. "If you can make it to Iki Town at sunrise tomorrow, we can begin your training." 

I am having a hard time processing what he's saying, but my parents react immediately. My mom sputters out a series of thank-yous: to Hala, to the tapu, to everyone standing there. Pops tells me, "thank the Kahuna, son."

"Yeah," I say. "Thanks, old man."

I always got the feeling Hala didn't like me. He probably picked me up because he's bored and Kukui's going away. I mean, I'm glad and all, but I got a huge issue with studying under the old man: I have to stay here now.

The problem with the island trials is that you learn how to live on your own, without your parents or anyone telling you what to do. You make your own decisions and you eat a lot of junk and then you realize junk's bad for you so you stop and eat healthier stuff instead. Then you come home and your folks think you're that same junk-eating punk and they feel the need to keep telling you how to live.

When we get home mom takes a picture. She took one of me before I left, too, and it's up on the wall now. She says it's important to have a before and after. She begs me to tell her everything, tells me she'll never forgive me if I didn't get pictures of Malie Garden. She says we can go to the store and develop all the pictures I took the past few months so we can put them in an album. Actually, I'm shit with a camera so Molayne took most of them, but I don't tell her that. Somewhere in there’s a good shot of me and Kukui on the Malie Garden bridge. 

On the way to the store she tells me how happy she is that I'm home again. It's empty when it's just her and dad. I don't say anything, so she says, "You know, your father's gotten a lot better." I say I'm glad to hear it. 

The first few weeks are not easy. I wake up early to get to Hala's on time. Dad's up sometimes practicing his stroke. He yells for me to get out of the way when I walk through the living room, unless I want golf balls lodged in my brain. When I get home lunch is on the table. I take it out back to eat with Golisopod, but Mom expects me to eat with her. I want to head to the beach in Hau'oli at night, but my parents want me to stay in. I feel like I can't get the act of living in my own house right.

After a while I tell them Hala wants me to stay all afternoon too. Mom packs me lunches and I eat them by the ruins. I keep the afternoons for myself, and I stay out of trouble.

At dinner one night pops asks how the training is going.

"Fine," I say.  
"Just fine?"  
"Yeah." 

I shovel some rice into my mouth and chew. Mom's fork scratches her plate. Dad slams his fist into the table and Mom jumps.

"Guzma, what is wrong with you?" he says in a loud voice that isn't his yell. "Don't you want to talk to your own parents?" 

If I don't look at him, he can't make it worse, I think. My eyes are fixed on my plate. There's still some more rice I can scrape up. 

"I'm just tired," I say. Out the corner of my eye I see Ma's checking out her plate too.

"That's what you said last night," says dad. "And the night before."

I do the wrong thing. I look at him, straight in the eyes. "Yeah, well, I wake up at the ass crack of dawn every morning. I think I earned the right to be tired."

Pops doesn't like that. I didn't think he would, why did I say it? I watch him rise out of his chair and grip the edge of the table. I think, here it comes.

"And I think I've earned the right to talk to my son once in a goddamn while. Is that too much to ask?"

Nothing I say will make this any better. Ma comes in with a "George, please."

The table goes quiet. Pops looks down. After a while he sits down. But he's gotta have the last word. 

"Ass-crack of dawn. Who taught you to talk like that?" he goes. "I certainly didn't."

The next morning I wake up for training like I do every goddamn morning. Pops is there waiting for me. When I walk out of my bedroom, he pretends to be looking at the golf club in his hands, but I feel his eyes following me to the kitchen. 

"You got some nerve hiding behind your mom last night," he tells me. 

I take a bite out of some nanab bread.

"Not going to say anything, huh?" Not this time. I grab my shit and leave.

At Iki Town Hala asks me what my end goal is. I tell him it's to get stronger.

"Strength is a journey, my boy," he says. I don't get that. It's not a journey. You either are strong or you aren't. "You can't stay a trial captain your whole life. What do you want out of your journey?"

"To get stronger," I say again. I have to. The stronger I get the more people have to respect me. Hala's the strongest there is and everyone respects him. That's how it works.

I get Hala has no idea what to do with me. I have no idea what to do with me either. We train by the ruins. Golisopod can tell I'm pissed. I think Hala can too.

Before lunch break Hala suggests we fight. Bug and Fighting is a shit matchup. Every time I think I'm about to win I make one wrong move and it messes up the whole match. I know what that move is before Hala tells me every time. 

Today is no different. I make the wrong move. I do the wrong thing. I always do the wrong thing. "Guzma what is wrong with you?" I yell. It shouldn't be like this. I know better. This is stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Hala tells me maybe I should take the rest of the day off. I tell him I have nowhere to go. He says go home.

At home mom is out. Dad's at work. I sit in my room and listen to music. Stuff that reminds me of the nights I spent on Akala island. I wonder if Kukui made it to Kanto alright. I wonder if him going to Kanto means he's gonna come home and kick my ass. For a second I wish I'd taken Molayne up on his Dungeons and Dragonite offer but then I remember I'm not fucking desperate. 

The music stops suddenly. I see the CD player out the corner of my eye. It's skipping. I give it a couple smacks, and it starts playing again. But by then I'm not in the mood for music anymore.

If Hala won't train with us today, we can go by ourselves. We should try Ten Carat Cave again, I decide. Pummeling Rock types will make us stronger.

As I cross the living room I hear the key turn in the door. Dad's home. 

"Where's your mother?" he asks. I shrug. Probably at the store.

"Why are you home so early?" I shrug again. "You don't know."

"Hala sent me home early," I say. "Thought I could use a break." 

Dad drops the mail on the counter. "He has been working you pretty hard lately," he says. He laughs. "That old man's got so much energy he'll end up outliving both of us!"

My shoulders drop from the height I didn't even realize they were at. I smile. "Yeah." 

"Help me peel the vegetables, alright? Make it easier on your mother when she comes home." So I don't go to Ten Carat Hill, but I don't mind either.

We spend the next hour like that. But I'm doing it too uneven with the knife so I have to watch Dad show me a million times. And I make too much of a mess with the shavings. I cut my finger because I'm clumsy with the knife. 

Ma's happy about the vegetables when she comes home. She tells us to take a break and she'll handle the rest, so Pops and I go out in the yard and I show him Golisopod.

"That the same one we caught two years ago?" I say yeah. Iki Town Bug Catching Tournament. We entered together, took second place. 

All dad can do is look up. "He got big."

There's a letter in the mail from Kukui the next week. He says he's taken on half the Gym Leaders in Kanto already. I read the line about his 'electrifying' battle with the Lightning American and groan. At least Kanto isn't changing him.

Hala asks me the next day if I heard from Kukui. I tell him about the letter. He asks me why I chose to stay here, and I stop myself from saying I didn't.

"Guzma, you know you've got what it takes, right? You completed the trials. You love your Pokemon. And you don't give up. That's all you need to become a good Pokemon trainer."

"If that's all I need, why am I not good yet?" I ask.

A long sigh comes out of Hala. I know he's sick of me. Or he's getting there.

"Why do you want to be trial captain?" he asks. 

"Then nobody can tell me I'm not strong," I say. 

Hala looks at me. He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Guzma," he says. "You are already strong."

I can't tell him that I don't feel strong. I can't tell him that I go home and see my dad sizing up his golf clubs and I don't feel strong. I can't tell him that my parents ask me something and I can't look them in the eye and whatever I say ends up being the wrong thing and I don't feel strong. I can't tell him that my dad yells and I yell and then I run to my room and I don't feel strong.

"Golisopod's strong," is what I end up saying. 

Hala seems to like that answer. He says that's enough for today, go home.

Mom tells me it's a good idea to take a break once in a while, for me and for my pokemon. She asks me why I don't ask Hala if I can take a few days and spend it at home. She says how about a weekend, when my dad is free. 

I tell her the first thing I can think of- I met someone in Hau'oli, and that's where I spend my afternoons now. I say I made up the story about Hala needing me all day because I didn't want her making a big deal out of nothing. 

Mom smiles and winks and tells me she remembers what that's like. When she makes lunch now, sometimes she packs me two.

One great thing about bug types is that if they evolve, they do it pretty early. My pokemon evolved before Kukui's and Molayne's. I felt like a natural when I was doing the trials.

But after that there's no real way to quantify progress, and Hala points out every day a new weakness in me and my pokemon. So while the pile of shit that's wrong gets higher and higher, there's nothing I can point to and say, "but look at this. We're still getting stronger."

Every day there's always something. Why can't Golisopod hold out a little bit longer before running away. Why can't Ariados's toxins move through the body a little bit faster. Why can't Pinsir spar on par with Hala's all-star team of fighting Pokemon. 

"I don't know, old man!" I yell at practice one day. "Can’t you just let me focus on one thing at a time?"

Hala acts like he doesn't care that I yelled. "Since when has being a Pokemon trainer been about handling one thing at a time?" 

"I'm not in the mood for a lecture," I say. I take my pokemon and leave. It's the first and last time I walk out on the old man.

I go to Hau'oli. I don't look at anyone. I sit on the beach for a while pressed up against some rocks and watch the waves roll in. Somewhere miles away Kukui's his own boss, getting better on his own terms.

I take out my first lunch and a horde of wingull surround me instantly. I throw them the other lunch bit by bit and watch them fight for it. 

The next day I show up on time. Hala is up on the platform with Hariyama, waiting. I walk up and let out Golisopod. It doesn't end well. 

When the battle ends he doesn't say anything. He just goes inside his house. I go to the beach.

When it gets dark I don't go home right away. I sit still in the sand for so long that a pyukumuku crawls up my leg and latches itself there. It takes me a minute to pry it from my pants and chuck it back into the ocean.

I get home late. My parents are sitting in the living room. There's balled up pieces of newspaper all around the coffee table. A couple of bottles: one half-drank, one empty. Pops is pressing his fists into the rests of the armchair. Ma has her head in her hands on the couch. 

Ma told him about the girl who doesn't exist. He's mad because I was there and not here. He's mad because I didn't tell him about the girl. He's mad because she's a terrible influence on his well-behaved son. 

"We were worried about you is all," says mom.

"You're to come home as soon as Hala's through with you," roars dad. I don't have the heart to tell him he kind of already is. "No more seeing this what's-her-name."

I know what to do. Nod. Apologize. Head to my room and go to sleep. But I can't do that. I'm not a kid. I'm not gonna be treated like one.

"When I did my trials I stayed out as late as I wanted," I say. I can feel something rising at the back of my throat. It's where the words catch, and they come out all at once, shaky and all wrong.

"Why are you like this?" he yells. "What is wrong with you, Guzma, that you don't respect your father anymore?" 

I go to leave before I make it any worse. But he yells at me to stop where I am and listen. He's stood up now. 

"You live in my house," he yells. "How dare you treat your father like this? Your own father! I do everything for you."

I stare at the rug, hoping that there's enough pattern to memorize before he stops and I can go.

"Look at me!" I do. "Don't you have anything to say?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," is my answer. "I'm sorry all you can do anymore is yell." I see him start towards me. I see ma's arm reach out for him. I don't see anything else because I'm already turned around and sprinting to my room.

I slam the door and turn the lock and press my back against the door and brace myself. But the banging doesn't come. I sink to the floor and sit there for what feels like a week. I hear the voices of my parents. I hear a smash and a shout. Shuffling. Then the flick of the light. 

I wait a few more minutes and then I crawl into bed. I sleep with the door locked. The next morning there's a golf club-sized hole in the living room wall. 

When I get to Iki Town Hala isn't there at all. I knock on his door, and he answers in his robe and slippers. 

"I thought you were sick of me," he says, scowling. 

"No," I tell him. "I want to learn." I never want to sleep with the door locked again. 

"Then I want to continue." He takes off his robe, but before I have time to react I realize his real clothes were on underneath the whole time, that crazy old man. 

"I push you because I know you can take it," he tells me. "But that isn't all there is to being a Pokemon trainer. I'm sorry I made you think that way, and I'm sorry for frustrating you. I failed you as a mentor."

When he apologizes I feel like shit. I was the one who walked out on him. He was doing his job, and I hurt him. "I'm sorry too," I say. He laughs.

"So we're both sorry, eh? Enough of this! Let's get to work!" Practice is good.

I get home and find Dad watching TV. He doesn't make a sound when I walk through the door. I stand there waiting for a second, staring at the hole in the wall. It's been patched up but you can still tell what happened just by looking. When the TV cuts to commercial, Dad mutes the channel and says "what."

"I'm sorry," I say. "About not telling you everything. About...talking back last night." I feel like a little kid when I say it. It's hard to say.

Dad blinks. "Well," he says. "I accept your apology." He takes a swig of his drink and goes back to looking at the TV, but I don't move.

"Was that all you wanted? Commercial's over." 

I go to my room.

Mom hasn't had a Pokemon since she was a kid, so she loves to go out back and see mine. I think she'd let them wander free around the house if they weren't bugs. I know she's scared, but she tries. 

"It doesn't take much for Pinsir to crack open a human skull," I tell her. It's supposed to be cool, but I see her freeze up as she goes to hold out her hand. 

"That's very nice," she says and pulls her hand away. I think she had a Rockruff as a kid. I think it'd be good for her to have one now.

She used to like Masquerain the best because of the colors. But Masquerain used to freak out at sudden movements, so the one time mom goes to pet it it gets all jumpy and beats its wings and chases Ma right back into the house. She doesn't ask to see Masquerain again, no matter how many times I tell her it's gotten a lot better.

Molayne finds my phone number somehow and calls me. He tells me about all the things I don't care about: conspiracy theories about a time machine, a weird guy named Bill who got turned into a Pokemon, and a machine that stores Pokemon in your PC. He says he should've gone to Kanto with Kukui. I say join the club.

There's a new music store in Hau'oli, and I end up going there so much the guy behind the counter knows me. He sneaks EPs into my bag when his boss isn't looking. I take them home and lock my door and pop the CDs into my player.

There are songs about revolution, but that's not interesting. Revolution implies you're fighting against someone stronger than you. I'd rather just be at the top. So I listen to songs about being at the top. Doing what you want. Getting angry and breaking shit.

I wish I had some shit to break, but we don't have much anymore we can afford to break in the house. And I'd probably get arrested if I broke anything else. But when someone hears that smash, and you're the one that caused it, they shut right the fuck up and listen. 

It's been almost a year since I started meeting the old man at dawn. Now he's having me fight other people during training. His son visiting from abroad, captains from other islands, some other retired trialgoers. I beat some of them. I lose to some of them. Hala doesn't tell me good job either way. It doesn't matter how many times I win or lose. He says nothing. He looks as frustrated as I feel every time.

After a few days I ask him how many of these people I have to beat down to become Captain. 

Hala is quiet for a while. "Have you learned nothing from battling them?" he asks.

"Of course not," I say. "I can't learn anything from people I can beat. That's why I'm studying from you, not them."

"So once you can beat me, that's it?" he asks. "There'll be nothing more to learn? Guzma, you should know better than that."

I have no idea what he's talking about. "I don't care about philosophy," I tell him. "I just want you to show me how to be stronger so I can be Captain." 

"You keep saying that," he says. "But there are other types of strength, and other traits altogether, that mark a good Captain." 

"That's stupid," I say. 

"If you think it's stupid then stop coming," he tells me. I snort at this. "No, really. I don't know how else to make this clear to you." 

I look up at him. There is something in his eyes I've never seen before. 

"Old man, I-"

"Empathy. Respect. Compassion. These are things you don't have. These are things you'll never be Trial Captain without. And if you won't open your heart to them, there's nothing more I can teach you. We're through here."

It doesn't process for a moment. I look up at him, but there is no smile. This is not a joke.

"So that's it?" I ask. 

"I am sorry, Guzma," he says. "You are a powerful trainer, but you are not a Trial Captain." 

Well that's fine. I tell him I didn't want this stupid job anyway. I tell him I wanted to get far away from here, that this was the only thing holding me back. I tell him thanks for nothing, for all my time he's wasted. As I'm yelling I can tell he wants to say something but he keeps his jaw clamped shut. Good. I don't want to hear another word out of his stupid old mouth.

A lot of what I say is true. This was the only thing keeping me here. I have money, I have Pokemon. I can go anywhere I want. When I realize this I stop. I run down the hill for home as fast as I can and I don't look back. I don't have much time.

The bag I used for my trials is old and coming apart. I don't have anything else to put my stuff in. That's when I remember the black bag Dad keeps his golf clubs in. I grab it from the living room and toss the clubs on the floor. They fall to the ground with that metal sound that goes straight up my back. 

Back in my room I stuff as much shit into it as I can. Clothes, music, old supplies from my trials. I hear the front door open, and I freeze. Heavy footsteps in the doorway. It's dad, home early.

I hear him walk through the living room. I hear him pick up a club. I shut my eyes and I can see him turning it over in his hands. Then I hear him call my name.

"Guzma?" I try to lock my bedroom door as quietly as I can. "Guzma, did you leave my clubs all over the floor?" 

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I need an escape plan. I look out the window. It's too small for me or the bag to fit through. I have to go out the front door. I finish packing and do a once-over of my room. Before I leave I take the Dawn Stone on my desk and jam it into my pants pocket, right next to Golisopod's ball. I open the door. This is it.

Dad's standing his clubs against the wall one by one, but they keep falling down. He hears me come out and sees me standing there with his bag.

"What are you doing with that?" he asks. The iron driver's in his hands. Hidden in my pants pocket, Golisopod's ball is in mine.

"Going out." 

"Where?"

I look at the bag slung over my shoulder. "Golfing." I walk past him and head to the door.

"Oh no you don't," I hear him growl. I feel something latch onto the golf bag. He's reaching out with the driver, I realize. He yanks it back towards him and the bag falls off my shoulder and straight down, shit spilling all over the floor. 

"Alright," I say, "keep the bag." My voice shakes over the words. I fight every muscle in my body to keep still. 

"Repels, Pokeballs, your savings...You were running away?" It's more like leaving, and I am still planning on doing it. I don't say that.

"Guzma, what is wrong with you? Without a word?" I look at him. He's shaking too. "What will your mother think?"

"She'll understand," I say. She probably will. I back away towards the door. 

"You're not going anywhere," he says. "You're going to sit down and we're going to talk about this." I don't know if he's realized it but when he went to point at me he did it with the driver hand. The club is inches away from my chest.

"Quit waving that thing around," I tell him. That feeling in my throat is back. It tells me to get out.

"You don't tell me what I can do in my own home," he yells. I barely see the driver move, but the next thing I know the edge of it's lodged into the coffee table. When he realizes what he's done he changes the subject. "What happened to being a Captain? Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Hala says it's no use. I'm not going to be a Captain."

"Hala won't see you anymore? What did you do this time?" He shakes his head. "It's always something with you!"

I never know what to say to that. He's right. It is always something with me. I stare at the bag on the floor. This isn't what I wanted. None of this is what I wanted. I just want to get out, to not have to live like this anymore. I want to get so strong that there's never anything wrong with me ever again.

Dad gives up on getting a reaction out of me and starts tugging on his club. I make a mad dash for the bag while he's distracted, but he pulls the club out of the table just in time.

"Don't you touch that!" he yells and brings the club down on my back. He raises it again only to lower it, but this time I can catch his hands with mine, even with my back smarting like hell.

You can go through a lot of pretty fucked up stuff before you realize what's actually happening isn't what's supposed to happen. The moment that club hits my back everything clicks. I don’t have to take this.

"I said quit waving that thing around."

I grew a lot on my trials. Not as a person. I just got taller. I guess I never noticed because I'd never been close enough to Pops to measure. Not until now, as I stand up straight. He’s still taller, but he no longer towers over me like he did before I left. 

"You like screaming at your son, huh?" I yell. I rip the driver from his hands and toss it to the side. I hear it crash. I don't get to see what it breaks, but I feel strong. "You got some nerve hiding behind your clubs like that, Pops." 

He holds his hands up and opens his mouth to say something, but I'm done. I let him have one, right across the face, and I feel strong. 

He brings his hands to his face and I knee him in the gut. All it takes to send him backwards is one shove. I watch him fall onto the table, knocking over everything that was on top. The empties from the night before that weren't quite empty tip over and start to pool on the rug. 

I don't say another word. I grab the bag as he's getting up and I go. I get to the ferry station at Hau'oli as fast as I can and I shove all the money I have in my pockets at the woman at the counter, and I feel strong when I tell her, "Get me as far away from here as I can go."


End file.
